From Davis to Esparto and around Yolo County

The home of all things right and relevant needs a bit of a reality check. Davis has seemingly gone a loco. On Monday, Aquelina Talamantes was charged with murder after she allegedly left her 5-year-old daughter in her car's trunk while driving to a friend's home in Sacramento.

And that's just this past week. Daniel Marsh, 16, is accused of viciously stabbing to death Oliver "Chip" Northrup and his wife Claudia Maupin in April. And before that, there is the case of Clayton Garzon, who just pleaded no contest to a felony battery charge of beating Lawrence "Mikey" Partida in a front yard. Before that it was David Snyder, a UC Davis chemistry researcher, who was caught with bomb-making materials.

Wow! Davis has been very much wrapped up in where it will get its future water supply and whether it should be fluoridated. Residents there might want to pay more attention to what's in their water.

It's stuff like this that makes the stabbings and shootings in Woodland almost tame.

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Of course Woodland has some issues as well, as demonstrated in a letter to the Sacramento Bee from Margaret Batterman, who was responding to a Bee Sept. 21 story about illegal immigrants. "I am so tired of the Bee's obvious support of illegal immigrants and the constant articles about different individuals plights. Why not cover legal American citizens who, like myself, work three and four jobs to put themselves through college? Whose parents have been paying taxes their whole life only to find when their children got to college, they can't receive any aid but some minorities illegally in the United States can? Why not more stories on struggling legal American taxpaying citizens whose rights are being trampled and their legal citizenship being made a mockery of? There is clearly a double standard and your paper makes their stance very clear. You only want a certain demographic for a subscriber?"

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Then again, there are positive things happening all over. On Sept. 18, Pioneer High School FFA held a tri-tip drive-through dinner. There were more than 100 meals sold and Lauren Millang, a Pioneer High FFA reporter, said that the dinner was "overall a huge success." She thanked the dinner's sponsors NorCal Produce, Timothy's Bakery, Superior Farms and Penning Farms for their help.

Westward in Esparto, there was $50,000 donated to Esparto High School by George and Isabel Story in memory of their niece, Cynthia A. Durst. The money will go toward the cost of holding math and science courses by purchasing test equipment and paying for tutors and college lecturers. Durst, who died recently, was a 1979 graduate of Esparto High School.

Then there's "Valerie," a Beamer Park resident, who sent a quick note of appreciation for the nearly 80 people who showed up during the neighborhood's first National Night Out in early September.

To make the story even better, she tells of having to mow her lawn after a tough day of cleaning house while trying to wrangle her 12- and 2-year old children. Valerie, a single mom, left the mower in the front yard while she went inside her home to rest. A couple of hours later she came back outside to find the lawn mowed and the mower placed next to the front door porch. Both of her neighbors were out of town, so apparently some stranger came to her aid.